The Lost Girl
by Ahnah12
Summary: Luke, Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde find a girl in an alleyway. This is no-one ordinary, though. She wears the same clothes Luke once wore when he was activated. Could she be like him? Please read and review. :D !CHAPTER 16 NOW UP!
1. The Lost Girl

I sneezed violently. It was the fourth time I had sneezed in half an hour. Maybe I was coming down with something. My brain ticked over all the people I'd been near in the week, trying to think whether any of them had been sick. I couldn't think of anyone. Maybe it was just the dust in the attic.

"Mum?" I asked my mother, Sarah Jane. "When was it you last ducted in here?" Sarah Jane isn't really my mum. I don't have a mother. I was just an experiment. Sometimes I wish I could have been born normally, like Clyde or Maria or Rani. They're my friends, my very best friends in the world.

"I don't dust," Mum answered. She smiled, "When you save the world, things like cleaning don't really seem to matter any more.

It was mattering to me. I had just let out another sneeze, a very loud one and my nose felt all blocked up. I remember the very first time I sneezed. I thought my face was blowing up, but mum just laughed.

"Maybe I should do it?" I suggested, feeling the itchy sensation start up all over again. I went downstairs. In the kitchen I picked up a sqaure of blue checkered material my mum calls a 'j-cloth'. I never really got the name, (why 'j'?!) and mum tried to explain something to me about marketing and product names, but I didn't really get it. I don't really see the point of a piece of cloth being labelled a 'j-cloth' when there is nothing remotely 'j'-ish about it. I just guessed there was something I was missing.

Back up in the attic, I stood on a chair to survey all of the high-up surfaces. I had a sudden thought.

"Do you think needs dusting?" I asked uncertainly. It was possible that every time he emerged from the wall that he picked up a little bit of dust. It could accumulate and could potentially get clogged up.

"Don't bother." Mum suggested. Then she added. "We don't really need to dust anywhere up here, it's fine."

I let out a sneeze that had been building up out to prove her wrong and then gingerly set to work on the top of an old mahogony wardrobe. The dust was nearly a centimeter thick in some places. No wonder I was sneezing everywhere.

"What do we need a wardrobe up here for anyway?" I asked mum. It seemed pointless. Wardrobes are for clothes and shoes. Mum and me keep all of those downstairs in our rooms.

"It's useful for keeping things in." Mum said absent-mindedly. She was working on one of the many computers in the attic and ever time I spoke to her I felt like I was interupting something very important. I probably was.

I shrugged and didn't question any more. Finally, all the dust started getting to me. Instead of scooping it up, I just seeme to be stirring it up my nose.

"I'm going out." I said to mum. She nodded and didn't turn away from her computer screen. I grabbed my jacket and headed out. I walked along the road and then down the next, vaugely heading towards Clyde's house. I turned up a side-alley and walked down it, in no rush. The air was unblocking my nose and after a few sneezes I felt almost normal. It was just sneezing again when I fell over something lying on the ground.

I fell onto cold, hard stone. It had recently rained, probably when I was in the attic because the ground was quite wet and the were puddles dotted about. The water immediately began to seep into my top.

I scrambled up again, but I had only got onto my knees when I saw what I had fallen over.

My first feeling was a sense if de ja vous (I think that's what mum calls it). Did I recognise the figure lying prone on the concrete? Something looked so familiar... But no, it was the figure that stirred up memories, it was the clothes they had on. I almost fell backwards in shock, for I had a set of the very same clothes hanging at the back of my wardrobe.

The same long white t-shirt, short-sleeved with a v-neck. The same plain white shorts underneath and the same trainers. I leant in closer. She was unconcious, lying on the wet street her long reddish-brown hair strewn everywhere, dipping in muddy puddles and trailing through dirt.

All her clothes were wet, so I figured she must have been out while it was raining. How long had she just been lying here? An hour? Two? Someone must have noticed her.

The though I was thinking over and over again was; how? I had thought I was the only one the Bane created when they had come to earth, but unless some other institute outfitted their subjects in exactly the same garments as the Bane, I hadn't been as alone as I had thought.

Whispering a quick apology to the unconcious girl, I lifted the long top up over the waistband of her shorts.

Her stomach was as flat and smooth as mine. No belly-button. Quickly, in case she woke up to find me leaning her her , pulling her top up, I covered up her stomach again. What should I do?

Gingerly, I slid an arm under the girl's back, ignoring the scrape of gravel on the back of my hand. It had started to rain again, so I wanted to get back as soon as possible. I slid another arm under her knees. Her shorts extended just above them, so I could see and feel just how painfully thin her legs were. Was I that skinny when I woke up?

I braced myself standing up, but she wasn't as heavy as I thoug she would be, even considering how boney she was. I was closer to Clyde's house, but I set off in the direction I had come, back to Sarah Jane's house. There was no question of just leaving her on the concrete. However light the girl was, my arms started to ache from holding her.

The rain was steadily getting heavier and heavier. It was at the point of pelting it down when I turned the corner onto my road. I could see the individual drops when they hit the girl's face. They splashed off in a million droplets. One hit her eyelash, and I expected it just to splash off, but it clung there. Her eyelashes were very long and brown.

I don't know how I made it all the way back, but I did, not having to put her down once. I rung the doorbell , (I had to; my key was in my pocket and I couldn't get to it) and waited.

Rani came to the door. She must have popped in from over the road and waited with Sarah Jane until I came back.

"Luke!" she said in welcome when she saw me, then "Oh!" she said when she saw my burden."Who is she?"I saw her registering the girl's clothes and the way her hair was so long it was dragging along the wet ground, even with me holding her at chest height.

She stood aside for me to come through, shut the door and followed me into the living room, watching as the girl's hair swept along the floor. I had an absurd vision of me doing dusting upstairs with it.

I didn't want to get Sarah Jane's sofa wet, but I couldn't really avoid it, so I put her down on the biggest sofa in front of the TV.

"Are we taking home anybody now?" Rani said sceptically. "Why didn't you just foist her off on someone else? Someone who lived near? What are we going to do with her?" she glanced at the prone figure lying on the sofa, one of her thin arms hanging off and her red, full mouth slightly open.

"She's a special case." I started, but I didn't know how to explain. Rani hadn't been there when I was found, so she probably wouldn't know the significance.

Rani snorted. "I expected you least of all to fall for a pretty face." she teased, but she also looked rather worried. "What's Sarah-Jane going to say? We've got to phone the police." I started to protest that we couldn't phone the police, but...

"Is that you Luke?" I heard mum call. She was coming down the stairs. She had probably finished her work to do on the computer. "Are you back? I was just thinking about putting supper on. Have you seen Rani, she came over." She turned into the living room and caught sight of my expression. "What?"

Then she caught sight of the girl, still lying there motionless on the sofa, her hair dripping over the edge her thin clothes sopping. It was slightly comical to watch her just staring her mouth in a funny 'o' shape. Her eyes widened.

"Luke... where did you find her?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "And how is it possible?" she momved closer to the sofa. "Is she OK? She looks kind of..... out of it." It was true. The girl hadn't batted an eyelid since I had seen her. She continued to breath in and out, but there was a ruddedness to it, like she had a cold or something. She was very pale and her eyelids wtere a pale violet colour that didn't look healthy. Her wrists were so thin they looked like they could snap. All in all, she didn't really look in that great a shape.

"I found her in a side-alley." I told her. Once again I wondered; why was she even there? "She was all like this when I found her." I stopped, because I felt what I had said wasn't quite right;something had changed. She was paler, I was sure and I didn't remember her to be breathing ruggedly at all when I was carrying her.

"What's on your arm?" I heard Rani ask. I looked down. Sure enough, something had stained the blue denim a black-ish colour. I sniffed it. It smelt like iron.

Sarah Jane was already rolling the girl over and when she was on her front, we could see that the thin, white fabric of her t-shirt , just under the girl's collarbone, had a large gash in it, with a huge red mark circling it. I could just gape as mum told me to get some scissors. I got them from the kitchen table and gave them to Sarah Jane.

"Go out now Luke." she said, putting the scissors to the girl's t-shirt. She started to cut into it when she realised I hadn't gone.

"Why should I go?" I asked, perplexed. "Rani doesn't, and I want to make sure that she's Ok." I was concerned for her. I could just see the mangled skin underneath the slashed t-shirt and it looked very deep. All the blood on her top explained her white pallor; bloodloss. How could I have been so blind not to notice?!

"Because I'm taking her top off!" said mum. "We can't have you here when she has her top off! She's a girl!"

I realised it was another human thing I wouldn't get, so I went out into the hallway to wait. I didn't know what mum was going to do about the cut in the girl's back; she could only clean it and put a bandage on it. I thought a cut like that would need stitches, but we couldn't exactly take her into a hospital. She had no name for one thing, and no mother or father. She had no records and she would definitely confuse the doctors with her absence of a belly button.


	2. Scan

Rani came out and closed the door behind her. "Sarah Jane says to run up and get her one of your spare tops. She's bandadged it and it should hold for a while. She's given her some stuff to fight off infection."

As I went up to get her a top from my top drawer I reviewed all my clothes metally in my head. A top could fit, even if it would be incredibly baggy, but we would have to go out and get the girl some new clothes. The jeans I wore would stay up for a second on her my trainers must be about three or four sizes too big.

In my room, I found the smallest t-shirt that I could, one I hadn't worn for months because I could hardly pull it over my head it was so tight. I found some PE shorts she could wear if they decided to change all her clothes and a small jacket I'd never been able to zip up at the front. I found her some socks and hoped she had underwear of her own.

When I got downstairs, Rani took the clothes with a smile and dissapeared into the living room again. I waiting impatiently, trying to count the dust mote swirling around me. I got to 2,391 when the living room door opened again and Rani and Sarah-Jane came out.

"When we're sure she OK, we'll carry her up so Mr Smith can scan her." Sarah-Jane told us. "I don't know what could have made that mark on her back, but Mr Smith may be able to work it out by the shape."

It was nearing seven o'clock by this point, so mum made me and Rani tea. It was dark outside and the rain was even heavier now. I could hear it hit our conservatory repeatedly, like a drumming. As I ate my pasta (of all the food I've ever tried since being here, pasta is most definitely the best), I kept on looking at the door, beyond which the girl lay sleeping. (At least I hope she was sleeping, -not in a coma or anything!) Rani and Sarah-Jane were doing it too and I knew there were thinking about her, just like me.

"Are we going to keep her?" I blurted out. I could help myself. The question had been niggling at the back of my mind for the last half-hour at least. I was worried. Sarah-Jane had kept me, but I didn't know if she wanted another person about the house, another person to involve in the mad world of aliens. I couldn't see anything else we could do with her, but who knows? Sarah Jane could give her to Torchwood to look after in their cells if she didn't want anyone else to look after. I didn't realise until then that I wanted her to stay. I wanted to know what she knew and I wanted to help teach her thing, like Sarah-Jane and Maria could do for me. I would be as alone as I was now. I wouldn't be so different.

Sarah-Jane looked at me for a bit. Then she sighed. "Of course, Luke." she told me. "What else could we do with her?" No way was I going to explain the Torchwood route to her if she hadn't thought about it yet. "The girls skin and bone. Goodness knows what's happened to her to put her in the state she is now. We couldn't give her to a hospital or an adoption place. How would she fit in?" Sarah-Jane smiled. "Besides, it would be unfair to keep you and sen her away. You're basically family."

Family. I hadn't though of that. I weight I hadn't known I was carrying had lifted off my shoulders when Sarah-Jane had said we could keep her. Keep her. I made it sound like she was some kind of pet.

"We should go and look at her again." Commented Sarah-Jane and Rani and me helped clean up the dishes in the sink.

We opened the door quietly onto the dark room. The girl still lay on the sofa unmoving. She hadn't even turned over. I could hear her breath in the silent room, but I could see the slight heave of her chest as she dragged air in.

"Maybe we shoud scan her now." I suggested quietly. "She may have internal injuries that we may have overlooked and Mr Smith will be able to see them when he scans her."

Sarah-Jane was silent for a moment, mulling it over. "What if we hurt her?" she asked. The figure did look very delicate just lying there. I could see the outline of the bandage Sarah-Jane had made for her against the too-big t-shirt she had on. I scowled. That was the t-shirt I could pull over my head. I wasn't that big! "She doesn't look very good."

"I still think we move her." I whispered. Rani made an agreeing noise. "We need to see what's wrong with her."

Sarah-Jane nodded her assent.

It wasn't hard work lifting her up the stairs. With each of us holding about 1/3 of her weight it felt like carrying a kitten. (Haven't done this before, but Rani used to have cats and she says that they're not that heavy). Sarah-Jane had her arms, while Rani had her feet and I supported her middle. The bandages looked like te only thing keeping her together. It took all of two minutes to get her upstairs, with lots of shouting of 'Corner!' and 'Watch that step Rani!'

Once upstairs, we deposited her on the long couch-thing. She lay there, oblivious to everything. I wondered if she would ever wake up, or if we would just continuously take her up and down the stairs.

As Sarah-Jane called upon Mr Smith, Rani and I looked at the small figure.

"Do you think we should poke her?" Rani asked, only half joking. "It might get her awake." I smiled, but shook my head. "I think you could bang dustbin lids at this one and she would wake up." I answered. Mr Smith's emerging from the wall (quite a loud process) had not phased her.

Rani and I tugged the couch closer to the super-computer as Sarah-Jane asked him to run a scan on her. She also gave him a sample of her blood she had collected earlier when it had been spilling everywhere. A laser ran along the figure. We settled back to wait for the answers.


	3. The Wait

That night I lay awake in bed. Mr Smith hadn't been able to tell us much about the girl, though there were one or two intriguing things he found. One was a needle, one imbedded in her right was one of the ones hospitals use as drips. This could, he said, have been used to provide the girl with nutrients. It must have snapped off in her arm at some point and not have been removed. The skin had healed over it, making the only way to take it out cutting her arm open. We didn't think it could harm her, so we would leave it in there for the time being.

The important thing was that the wound she had sustained on her back was not life-threatening. It was certainly very blood and there was a mild infection running its course, but nothing that couldn't be healed. We had deemed it safe to carry her again and so had put her in the spare room. I had though to set up a small laboratory in that rrom in the near future, but it would most likely become the girl's room. It was the only other bedroom.

Sarah-Jane had redone her bandages so she wouldn't bleed through the old ones and onto the sheets, Rani had gone back to her house across the road and Sarah-Jane and I decided to go to bed. No good would come of waiting for her to wake up. It would be a long time, Mr Smith had said, before she would wake up. Maybe more than a day or two. Her body had to heal itself and could do it while it was up and about. It would be better if it healed while she was asleep.

I often find it hard to go to sleep. So many ideas and formulars race through my head at night and I can't go to sleep until I can find answers for them. Tonight it was so much harder because I had the added questions about the girl weighing me down- and of course they were the ones I couldn't answer.

Finally, I drifted to sleep and a dreamless night. (Of course I don't really ever dream).

I woke up to another rainy day. Unlike yesterday, it was more of a drizzle than a downpour, but somehow this made it even more dismal. The sky was a grey so boring I felt like yawning at it and so I dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. I always woke up early on Mondays, excited about another day of school. Rani and me would see Clyde and we could tell him about our discovery. He would be mad to have missed out on such a big thing, but he would get used to it.

Sarah-Jane slouched down the stairs a few minutes after I poured myself some cereal. She declared it too early to be up and smiling when I wished her good morning and slouched back upstairs again to have a shower. Grinning, I looked over my maths homework I'd done in two minutes the night before. I couldn't find any mistakes, so I put it in my schoolbag.

Rani came over to walk with school with me ten minutes later. I looked at my watch. We didn't leave for another twenty minutes.

"Hi!" she greeted me with. "How is she?" I didn't have to know who she was talking about to know who she meant. "You know, you never even told my who she is."

I could I have overlooked something like that? I had been to caught up in carrying her all over the house, I hadn't told Rani about the significance of those clothes. She must have known about the bellybutton though. I had shown her that in the past.

I explained as Rani as we walked up the stairs to the first storey. I stopped briefly in my room to show her the clothes I had hanging at the back of my wardrobe.

"They're exactly like hers!" she exclaimed, shocked. Then she looked sheepish. "Well... hers are a bit smaller.." she turned to grin at me as we carried on down the hallway. I poked my tongue out at her, (something I have never done before, but thought it looked fun. I was right- it was quite fun!)

When we reached the door and opened it, I half expected her to be up and about, sitting on the bed, walking about, but she was just lying there again, unmoving. From far away, she appeared to look the same as she had done yesterday, but as Rani and I edged closer, I saw a slight tinge of colour to her cheeks I hadn't noticed yesterday and her long, curling hair had a shine it that yesterday it had lacked. Rani had tied it up yesterday into a scruffy bun to get it out the way as we had carried her upstairs. Her soft, full lips had more colour in them and the lids of her eyes did not seem quite so dark. Rani and I watched her for a little bit in silence.

"I suppose she'll walk with us to school." Rani said. I nodded, though I hadn't thought about this. I could picture this girl in school with us. She looked to... fragile. Rani smiled. I think she liked the idea of having another girl in our little group as me and Clyde were both boys. Now she would have someone to talk about girly things too. Like how she fancies Clyde, I though. She was so obvious.

"What do you think she'll want to be called?" asked Rani. I hadn't thought about this either, thought it was obvious we couldn't keep on called her "The Girl" as we had been doing. I remembered my own naming session. I had wanted to be called Maria. I still didn't really get why I couldn't, though Sarah-Jane had tried to tell me about boy's names and girl's names. I don't really see the difference. The ones that really confuse me are the Alex's and Jo's which can be used for both genders. Why make up a rule if you're not going to stick to it? It's so lazy.

"I'm not sure." I answered Rani. We were joined by mum.

"I changed her bandages again this morning." she informed us. "Good thing too as they were sodden." she looked and sounded worried. "I think that the blood's clotting though." she added, sounding a little happier. I smiled at her in encouragement. She smiled tiredly back.

"Shouldn't you be off to school now?"she asked. "Don't worry, I'll look after her while you're gone. I don't think she's going anywhere at the moment." I nodded and we set off down the stairs again.


	4. Getting Bored Here

School that day was uneventful, except for lunch where we met up with Clyde to talk about our latest addition.

"What- she just lies there?" Clyde asked. "Sound kinda boring." Peaking at Rani he lent his head in and asked in a whisper, "So is she hot?" with a grin. Rani still heard.

"Oi, Clyde Langer! I should've known that would be the first thing you asked!" she was so obvious it was almost comical. Clyde still had no idea she liked him.

He just grinned and ducked his head. "What can I say? It not my fault the ladies love me." Rani scowled at him, but he just grinned back. Clyde has a very infectious grin. "Can I come over this afternoon then?" he asked with a sly look at Rani, daring her to make anther comment. She just pursed her lips in a way that made her look a lot like her mother.

"Sure." I replied. "Though it won't be interesting. Like going to visit someone in hospital with a coma." Rani laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, it's exactly like that, except we don't play music or anything to her."

"Cool." said Clyde and then the bell went that signified the end of lunch. Clyde and Rani groaned.

Back at my house, we made some tea and helped ourselves to biscuits form the cupboard. Sarah-Jane was no-where to be seen,- probably out doing some journalist work. I thought it was a bit silly leaving the girl there without anyone to look after her. She could have woken up, not knowing where on earth she was (if she was on earth!)

My worries were needless. As Rani, Clyde and I tiptoed into the spare bedroom, you could see that this was someone who was going no-where in a hurry. She lay in exactly the same position as we had left her in. no one lock of hair or finger had moved.

"Woa.." said Clyde. "You didn't say how tiny she was, man." Rani frowned at the ceiling. I would have to give Clyde a metaphorical nudge in her direction if he didn't take notice of her soon. After a while, we all got bored of staring at the small figure and went downstairs to call Sarah-Jane and see what she was doing.

"Hello, Sarah-Jane Smith here."

"Hi mum!" I called down the phone.

"Hello Luke, dear!"Sarah-Jane called back. "Is she alright?" I didn't have to ask who 'she' was. "I didn't want to leave her all alone, but I got an urgent call about a supposed alien sighting in the area. Don't worry, false alarm, it was just a baby alligator someone chucked away in a pond. Despicable." she muttered that last bit to herself. "Anyway, I took it to the RSPCA and I'll be home in twenty minutes tops."

"OK mum." I answered, "See you soon."

After I put down the phone we went and 'hung' (as Clyde puts it) in the attic until we heard the sound of Sarah-Jane's car pulling up in our drive. (I don't like to say 'hung', it sounds a bit morbid!)

After a minute or two she came up to the attic to see us.

"Rani, I just saw your mum outside her house watering the plant. She wants you home by six-thirty for tea." Sarah-Jane said absebtly. She slung her coat over a chair. "No movement from Herself down there?"

We all shook our heads.

"Well, you kids are going to have to entertain youselves for the time being." she ordered. "I have to type up an article." We nodded again and went back downstairs to watch the television.

"Are you going to keep her then?" Clyde asked once we'd got downstairs. "I didn't think Sarah-Jane really wanted any other kid in on this whole alien thing."

"You're right." I said, "But in this case she doesn't really have a choice, does she? She can hand the girl over to an adoption centre without questions being asked and she can't give her to a hospital." I let this sink in.

"You mean she doesn't have a-" he genstured at his stomach, meaning tummy-button, "Like you?"

"Yeah." Rani answered him.

I often wondered what it would be like to have a tummy-button. I would be really weird, I guessed, like having a huge, noticable scar. Tummy-buttons were scars. Even though it was normal for everyone on earth, I didn't think I would like to have a tummy-button.

Clyde whistled.

"It just get stranger and stranger." he commented. "Any idea where she came from?"

"No." said me and Rani together.

After a little while, Rani had to go home for tea and Clyde said he'd walk out with her.

"Call us if anything happens!" Rani called up the drive, before casting a gleeful smile at Clyde and crossing over the street. I shook my head at them and closed the door.

Mum was just finishing her typing when I entered the attic.

"Rani and Clyde gone?" she asked without looking up.

"Yes."

"How about supper then?" she turned off the computer.

Over dinner (some nice noodles in curry sauce), we were mostly quiet. Me and mum aren't great chatters and when you put two of them together, they don't talk much. We exchanged comments about our days and the noodles and not much more.

"She should wake up some time soon- shouldn't she?" I asked mum. This waiting game was beginning to get a bit tedious for everyone involved. (Except, of course, the girl).

"She should." agreed Sarah-Jane. "I bet when she wakes up she'll be hungry." We both chuckled a bit, then finished our noodles. "Your room is next door to her's." Sarah-Jane said. "If you hear anything from her in the night, make sure she's OK, then come and wake me."

I nodded, mouth full of the last of my noodles.

**A/N- Sorry it's getting so boring! I will wake her up soon- promise! :D**


	5. Nighttime

Sleep that night was riddled with dreams. For any other person this would be a normal night, but I had never knowingly had a dream. The dreams were terrifying, horrible and not normal dreams at all. Nightmares.

Firstly, there were all the stereotypical ones, being followed, being chased. In some there was blood everywhere as I was hacked up and shot at and cut by knives. There were falling nightmares, off cliff, into the path of a train, into deep water with no surface.

In the last of my dreams I was back in the alleyway, the girl lying at my feet and I knew I had to pick her up, but my body was to heavy and once I knelt to the ground I couldn't get up again. I tried to ease my arms under her as I had that day, but there were so heavy and I couldn't make them work.

The blood was seeping out from the wound in her back and I knew if I didn't get her back soon enough, she would bleed out on the cold and gravelly street, and now I was lying next to her, so heavy I couldn't move. It tried to say I was sorry, as her face was so close to mine, but my mouth was slack and I couldn't make it work at all. Her eyes opened.

I heaved upright in my bed, sweat clustering on my forehead. Terror was making my head race and my breathing come in gasps. I'd never been so terrified. I took a drink of water from my bedside table. The image of her face, eyes fixed on my was still in my mind. Her eyes looked like they were accusing me.

After a few minutes, my breathing started to return to normal and my hands had stopped shaking. Familiar sounds were calming me. I could hear Sarah-Jane snore lightly and turn over occasionally in her sleep. I could hear the boiler with its soothing thrumming. Every now and then a car came down the street.

Not everything was right though. From the room next to me I could hear movement. The girl must be tossing and turning.

From the first time I had seen her, I had never seen the girl move. She just lay there, breathing shallowly and not fluttering an eyelid. She may not be concious, but that she was moving meant that she would wake up soon. Probably in the next day.

I remembered what Sarah-Jane wanted me to do. She told me if the girl made any movement in the night to go check she was OK and then go to Sarah-Jane and wake her up. Silently, (I didn't want to wake Sarah-Jane with my noise if it was a false alarm), I got out of made and made my way quietly to the door. My door creaked a little, but when I listened to see if it had roused anybody, there was just the light snoring.

It was only a few steps from my door to hers. This one creaked too, but I reckoned I was safe.

The room was illuminated slightly form a street lamp, enough for me to see the small figure lying under the covers. She was on her side, her back to the wall. She didn't snore like Sarah-Jane, but kind of snuffled. Her thin arms were wrapped around her pillow a bit like a hug and her mouth was slightly open. I walked over, just to make sure she was asleep. There was a frown between her eyes.

One of her hands wandered round to her back unconsciously. I remembered the huge cut she had on it. Could she feel it in her sleep? Her hand crept back up to hug her pillow again, but the small frown didn't leave her forehead.

I snuck another step closer and the floorboards creaked. I held my position, barely daring to breath, not making another sound, wincing and scolding myself internally. Memory of ten thousand people and I couldn't even remember which floorboards creaked and which ones didn't. _Stupid! _

I stayed like that for half a minute, then risked a look down.

Large, dark eyes were staring at me.

They were opened wide and shocked. We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then I blinked and broke the spell.

"Hello?" I said tentatively. I remembered the first few minutes of when I woke up, when Maria was saying something to me, but for the first few seconds I couldn't work out what she was saying. Then I suddenly knew, and I learnt speech.

"Hello?" she said back, trying to mimic my way of talking.

"I'm Luke." I said slowly. "Luke?"

"Luke." I could feel how hard she was trying to understand. It would all come to her in a second. If she was like me. If.

"This is my house." I informed her.

"This is my house." she tilted her head to the side, as if to ask if she had gotten it right or not. I nodded. She hesitated for a second, then nodded back at me. I smiled and she smiled back. Then her face was sober again. The little frown was back again, deepening.

She said the next words slowly, trying them out. "My... back... hurts." her hand went to her back again and she felt the bandages.

Then I remembered. "I've got to go wake Sarah-Jane." I told her, turning around. A small hand grabbed my pyjamas.

"Noooooooooo." It was almost a moan. "Staaayyy."

"I need to go tell Sarah-Jane you're up though." Blank look. She didn't know who Sarah-Jane was, she only knew me. "I'll be back in a second. I promise."

I tugged myself out of her feeble hold and went into the hallway. Sarah-Jane's snores were still filtering out of her room. I went in and shook her. I felt a bit guilty about waking her, but she did ask me to.

"Sarah-Jane!" I shook her again until she immerged from her duvet, bleary-eyed.

She made a noise, which I translated to a rough approximation of 'what?' and rubbed her face.

"The girl's up!" I told her urgently. "You told me to wake you." I went to her door and unhooked her dressing-gown as she stumbled out of bed. I harried her into the corridor and then into the girls room to find her fast asleep, one hand still trailing on the floor. Sarah-Jane gave me 'The Look of Death' as Clyde would say.

"She was awake!" I managed to say before Sarah-Jane slumped off back to her room for another few hours of sleep.

**A/N- Thanks to all the lovely people who have posted reviews!**


	6. The Warehouse

I woke up that morning full of restless energy. The first thing I did was go check on the girl. I'd left her the night before sleeping in the spare room. I had toyed with the idea of camping out on the chair next to her, but the wall between us was quite thin and I reckoned that I would be able to hear anything that went on in there.

She was still asleep, but she was restless too, tossing and turning and twisting her sheets up into a mess. One of her hands was still draped on the floor, but the frown was gone from between her eyes. Maybe her back was hurting less than it did last night. Her skin did look healthier with much more pink in it. There was a flush in her cheeks that I hadn't seen before and her deathly pallor was gone.

Her hair was everywhere; lying splayed across her pillow, trailing on the floor, tangled around her body, twining round her arms. In the light streaming in form the window, I could see it had more brown in it that red. It was quite dark and set in loose curls that fell over her face and cascaded down to the floor.

"Looking better, isn't she?" mum asked from the doorway. I jumped, half spinning around, but didn't take my eyes off the figure lying on the bed. "Sorry about last night." she carried on sheepishly. "Did she really wake up?" Her eyes, like mine were fixed on the girl.

"Yes." I answered. "She complained about her back and told me not to leave to get you, but when we came back she was totally out of it again."

"That reminds me." said Sarah-Jane and gently turned the girl over, taking care not to hold her cut. "We need to dress this again and see how it is getting on. It may be bleeding through."

She gave me a pointed look and I took that as a sign that I had to vacate the spare room. Downstairs, she had put breakfast out on the table. I picked up a piece of toast and went to collect the post and sort out my school bag. It wasn't long before she called me up again.

"Rani not here yet?" she asked absent-mindedly as I walked over to look and the sleeping girl. I shook my head. "I've changed the bandages," she carried on, "but I think she's healing up fast and with any luck she won't need stitches."

The doorbell rang, so went downstairs to open it.

"Well?!" asked Rani as soon as she got inside. Her eyes were wide and full of questions. "How's she doing? How's her back?" she sat down on a kitchen chair and looked at me expectantly.

"She woke up last night." I informed her. "But when I come back from waking Sarah-Jane she was asleep again."

Rani was bubbling with excitement, wanting to go and look in on her, but it was getting late and we had to get to school. Sure enough Sarah-Jane shouted down, "Time to go off!" and we had no choice but to grab our bags and head out the front door.

The route from my house to Clyde's took us down the alleyway I found her in. it looked totally different in the sun, but I noted the darker patch of gravel were her blood had soaked in, not yet washed off by rain. How long had she lain in that spot. Had she been in pain? Had she been concious for part of it, unable to drag herself anywhere and wondering if the last thing she would see would be the cold ground?

I shuddered and passed the spot quickly. Rani was in a hurry, but she just wanted to get to see Clyde quicker. She really liked Clyde. I wondered how he didn't see it.

Clyde, when we got to his house, was all full of questions too. All too soon we were at school and then there was no time for talk as we made our way to our classrooms.

I was all set to walk home form school with Clyde and Rani, but when we walked out the school gates, mum was there in her car, looking impatient. She ushered us in and we set off at a fast pace in the opposite direction to Bannerman Road.

"Mr. Smith has picked up signs of alien activity about four miles from here." she filled us in. large amounts of energy are being stored and we need to find out what it's for." she veered off sharply at a junction and then carried on up a small street. "Mr. Smith says that amount of energy used for the wrong reasons could be very dangerous to the surrounding area." We spun around a corner and entered the factory part of town. Every building was grey and lifeless and litter was strewn everywhere over the filthy pavement.

We stepped out of the car and mum got her watch out to scan the area. She swept it around, watching the readings that came out of it. She frowned and swept again. She did it again, but nothing seemed to be coming up. She swore, looked at us guiltily and closed the watch.

"Nothing seems to be showing up at the moment, but I know which warehouse it is, so we'll go and check it out. It could be that the energy was used for teleportation and whatever was there isn't here any more." She retrieved her bag from the car, then pointed to one of the warehouses on the left hand side of the street. The iron door was rusty and the stones on the walls were crumbling, and, in some places, falling off. Chains hung from the doorhandles, but the lock that had held them together looked like it had been smashed open.

Rani looked uncertain. "Are you sure it's safe just to go walking in?" she asked. "Anything could be in there." She looked hesitantly at the grey building.

"We're just going to look." murmured Sarah-Jane. She motioned for us to follow her to the door. She tried it and luckily it was unlocked. Not that it would have made any difference against Sarah-Jane's sonic lipstick.

It wasn't as dark as I expected inside. My brain went over the windows I had seen from the outside. High up, dusty and very small, my working out concluded that they could not be the only source of the light in the large warehouse. There had to be something else illuminating it.

When I stepped around Sarah-Jane, I realised what it was. In the centre of the large room the warehouse was made up of, there were many machine, looking hi-tech and clinical. There were lights shining into a bed in the centre.

I had seen this setup before. It had been one of the first things I had seen. It was all too familiar.

A/N- Please tell me if you think I should carry on, as I'm thinking it's not very great and I might give it up for something else.

Tell me what you think. :S


	7. Software

_There were noises all around me suddenly. I felt like I had just been pulled up form the very recesses of my mind into a bright and busy world. Something was roaring in my ears and I felt soft material against my skin. I was _someone!_ I was a _being! _I could feel._

_It seemed like all around me there was chaos. The sounds of machines going off, sirens and warning bells. The sound of talking and shouting. I opened my eyes to see the lights. I smelled chemicals and rock, and something...orangey._

_Something was almost covering my face. I tore it off. I could see a lit room, people were running about._

_I had to run!_

_I stripped myself of the needle jammed into my flesh. It caused a tiny sting, but I ignored it. I had to run. For a brief second, I took in my surroundings, machines, computers and the strange bed-like thing I had been lying on, surrounded with lights..._

_Then I broke out into a run._

I remembered that day, though not as vividly as I remembered most things. Normally I saw things in my memory in perfect detail, but that memory was flawed. I was so new that day, my mind hadn't been working properly and I hadn't taken the detail I take now in. It's foggy and vague, but there is no way I would forget the layout of the first place I remember.

I'm looking at the layout now, and I know who it's for.

Not even Maria saw the place I lived my first few moments. After a minute of running blindly down cold corridors, we rounded a corner, found each other. She never saw were I woke up, confused and alone.

Sarah Jane was giving me a strange look. I must have reacted in some way, stopped or gasped to show I had seen this set-up before.

"Luke?" she asked, unsure. "You OK?"

I glanced again at the bed, the lights the monitors and managed to squeak out. "I've seen this before." I leant against an old desk, dusty and covered with grime. Mum came over immediately and put a protective arm around my shoulders. After all this time, it was a natural gesture she didn't even have to think about.

"Where?" she asked.

I composed myself a bit. It was strange that the layout had such an effect on me. I've really thought about the place were I woke up, but seeing it here now had bought all the old memories back, crowding my head.

"When I woke up." I answered. Knowing this sounded like when I woke up this morning, I added, "The day I was activated, this is what I woke up to. It's exactly the same."

Sarah Jane's eyed widened slightly. Then she looked down. It was a habit she had when she was thinking about something, one I think I picked up somewhere along the way.

She looked up suddenly.

"This is all too much of a coincidence." she announced, coming to the conclusion I'd already drawn myself. "One day we find a girl in the alley, wearing exactly the same clothes as you wore when we found you, with no tummy-button, and a few days after we find a place with exactly the same set-up and the place you woke up in? The two have to be linked. This is probably where she was to begin with. Only how did she end up four miles away in an alley?"

"Could it be the Bane again?" asked Rani anxiously. Didn't like the Bane after kidnapped her mum to get our attention. I didn't particularly want this to be their doing either. I preferred my real mother to the race that gave me life.

"Could be." answered Sarah Jane thoughtfully, "But last time they have a whole factory, a bus, the works. Why would they do their work in a grotty warehouse when they could make another factory?"

Clyde grinned. "Maybe they're scared of you." he joked. "I'll bet you've got yourself a pretty bad reputation with the Bane, after all you've done."

I grinned back. It was true we always seemed to thwart their plans.

Sarah Jane took her arm from around my shoulders and started to take a look at the machinery. There were computers, monitors, machine, all well beyond earth's ability to build. Of course, they couldn't beat , but nobody could.

"I'm going to see if I can find any information on the computers about what happened here." Sarah Jane said absently as she clicked away and some computer keys. "It might give us some idea of what we're up against and maybe some information about who lay on that bed." she paused. "Though I'll bet a tenner she's lying unconscious in our spare bedroom."

I could see Clyde was considering taking the bet on, but the odds were quite low. How many people in white smocks with no belly-buttons did you see walking around? I smiled to myself. I had almost made a joke. I _was_ improving.

"Aha!" crowed Sarah Jane. "I think I found something!" she did some more tapping on the keyboard, then clicked on something. She frowned, buzzed her sonic lipstick at the screen, then relaxed back and started scanning.

A few seconds later, it was obvious she couldn't make anything out of it so I stepped up to help her.

She looked exasperated. "I can't make head or tale of this." she admitted. "It's just some random numbers and words." she moved over so I could have a look at it.

At first look, it did look just like a random bunch of stuff all merged together, like someone had pressed any key on the keypad and added some word in in some places. But then my brain kicked in and within a couple of moments I had it figured.

"It's a software package!" I exclaimed. "All these numbers and words, if you copied this code and put it into a specific system, it would do what the software was meant to do. They must have bought the package and just inserted the code into...." I paused and looked around._ "That _system_._" I pointed to a small screen, flashing dull green figures. I looked just to be sure. The sentences on the screen mimicked the ones on the computer.

"What does this software package do?" asked Sarah Jane urgently.

Within a few minutes I had the answer. I rechecked my calculations and translations just to make sure I had got it right. I rocked back on my heels, not in the mood I had been in minutes before. The eager, curious mood in had evapourated. This was strange. And utterly wrong.

"Well?" Sarah Jane asked my after the silence had grown too tense. "What's it all for?"

I hesitated, not thinking she would like this answer.

"It- it grows people."

A look of disgust crossed her face, replaced by horror. She was silent for several more minutes. Then she unplugged the computer and lifted it up, forehead creased.

"Everybody take something." she ordered shortly. "We're going to get this back to . He can confirm what you said." she carried the computer out of the warehouse.

Ten minutes later, we were in the car and driving back to our house. Sarah Jane hadn't said it, but I think she found the idea of growing human being repulsive. This thought wasn't very comforting. Was that what the Bane used for me? A _software _package?

No-one had said a word, not even Clyde, since we had put all the stuff in the boot of the car. Everyone was mulling the idea of human beings made from software packages in their heads. Me too. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

We got back and unloaded he car. Rani acted as lookout, in case anyone was around to watch us take alien equipment into our house. We piled it up in the sitting room, behind the sofa and in front of the TV. I went into the kitchen to make some tea for us all. I was just reaching for the biscuits in the cupboard when I realised someone had been sitting on the kitchen table all the time I had been there. I turned round, opening my mouth to ask them to get the milk, and found a small figure sitting there in my overly-large t-shirt, swinging her legs.


	8. Hobnobs

I finally knew what people meant when they used the expression 'jumped a foot.' In the process, I also managed to drop the pack of hobnobs I'd had been holding and knock a cup off the counter. It shattered on the floor, but I didn't look down at it. I was too busy trying to restart my heart and not look like a total prat at the same time.

She was still looking at me. Her dark eyes swept over me, over the mess he had made, and back. We waited, suspended in silence, just watching each other.

"I thought you were a dream." After several minutes of standing there looking at each other the words made me jump a bit again. _I thought you were a dream? _I wasn't quite sure what she meant at first, but then I got it.

"Last-", my voice had gone all high all of a sudden. I tried again. "Last night, you mean?" I picked the biscuits off the floor and placed them on the counter, trying to look casual. The mug would have to wait until after this conversation to get hoovered up.

"Yes." The girl confirmed. I waited, but it seemed she had nothing else to say. She looked away and tapped the table with her fingers.

"LUKE!"

The yell from Sarah-Jane us them both startled and on our feet. I was amused to see that she only came up to my shoulder. I could see the top of her head.

"Where's that tea?" Sarah Jane called down again.

"Be there in a second, mum!" I called up, and turned to the kettle. I wasn't sure what to do. If the girl standing next to me came upstairs, she would see the alien artefacts that took up residence in the attic. She would be 'in the know' about our alien world and she would be drawn in to our dangerous life. I didn't know if that's what Sarah Jane, or even myself, wanted. I wanted to protect her.

On the other hand, if she was to live with us, she would eventually find out about hat we do.

I took an extra cup down from the cupboard. "Tea?" I asked her uncertainly, turning to watch her. She looked up distractedly and nodded. I doubted she even knew what it was.

Pouring tea into five cups was weird. I reasoned with myself that I better get used to it. She was a permanent fixture.

"Can I have a biscuit?"

I looked round at her. Her eyes were fixed on the packet on the counter. I mentally kicked myself for overlooking the fact that she would probably be hungry after such a long sleep and never having eaten before. I know I was when I made it back to Sarah Jane's house.

I passed the pack over to her. My hand brushed against her's. She was stone cold.

"Are you warm enough?" I asked. She was, after all, only wearing a t-shirt and my pair of gym shorts. I didn't wait for an answer and went to find a jacket. Where was that one I had that was about three sizes to small? Something to cover her legs wouldn't hurt, either.

I found the jacket and took it back to her. No luck on the trouser-front though. We'd have to go shopping. Even skinny Rani's clothes would be a bit big. She was back on the table when I got back to the kitchen. I thought of Sarah Jane upstairs and vaguely wondered why I hadn't told her the girl was up.

She looked happier after the jacket was on (though it must have gone down to her knees). She looked quite sweet there, sitting on the kitchen table, eating a hobnob in an overly large jacket, her hair falling over her legs and around her back. It really was ridiculously long. Remembering something else Sarah Jane had said I fetched the camera from the hall.

We had taken a few pictures of her when she was sleeping, just for the record, that we could show her sometime. Now, I took some pictures of her, documenting her first few hours awake. I wish someone would have done it for me.

I don't think she even noticed, she was so intent on the biscuit. She nibbled it, starting at the edges and working her way inwards. As I made the tea, I saw her out of the corner of my eye take another, trying not to rustle the pack.

I got a tray out and balanced all the drinks on it. Then I got a plate and gave it to her.

"Put the biscuits out?" I asked her. She obliged, sneaking the odd nibble of the biscuit she had taken. Once they were all out, she licked her finger and dabbed it in the crumbs, glancing my way to make sure this was acceptable behaviour.

"We're going upstairs now." I told her, holding the tray at chest height and motioning my head towards the door. "Bring the biscuits."

Happy to go wherever the her precious hobnobs went, she jumped up and followed me, holding the biscuits at chest-height just like I was doing to the tray.

"My friends are upstairs." I told her. "Sarah Jane is my mum, and Rani and Clyde are my friends." She nodded, concentrating on the stairs.

"Luke!" mum called from the attic. "What took you so long?"

We made our way up the stairs leading to the attic. I was excited, like showing a parent a new friend. "I've got someone to show you!" I called back up, before reaching the door and opening it and ushering the girl into the room before me.

"OOoooh!" squealed Rani bouncing over to put an arm round her. "You're awake! I'm Rani. Welcome!" She pulled her over to the couch and sat her down. Sarah Jane and Clyde took their tea.

After a moment of Rani chattering and of drinking tea, Sarah Jane put down her cup and saucer and said, "We need to check those bandages, and we also need to find a name."

Rani quickly pulled her bag out from underneath the sofa and scrambled to pull something out from it. She held it up for us to see.

"A Big Book of Baby Names!" she crowed. "By Amanda Hemmings!" She beamed at us. "I found it in a charity shop the other day and thought we might need it to find a good name!"

"Maybe we should let her choose her own name." Sarah Jane suggested. "Give her the book and she can look through and see which name she likes."

Rani handed the book over to the girl and looked at her eagerly. "Why don't you choose a name?" She told the girl. "But remember, you'll have it for the rest of your life. Choose a good one."

"Firstly, though." Said Sarah Jane, "We need to get those bandages sorted out and we need to see how her cut's doing." She gave me and Clyde a pointed look and I took that as a hint we needed to get out.

We exited the attic and stood outside to wait. I had to ask.

"Clyde?" I ventured.

"Yeah?"

"Why don't they want us in there right now? What is it with males seeing females topless? Males go around topless all the time."

This question seemed to make Clyde a bit embarrassed. "Well," he said, "Women are sort off…different…from men. Hadn't ya noticed? They've got…" he motioned.

"Oh." I couldn't believe that after two years on earth, no-one had ever mentioned this to me before. Though why would they? I was meant to be the clever one who knew everything.

Just as things were becoming very awkward out in the hallway, Rani opened the door and told us we could come back in. Clyde clapped me on the shoulder.

Back inside, Sarah Jane had fired Mr. Smith up and was trying to get more information about the warehouse we had found all the equipment in. It was still all downstairs, but we would take it up in a bit and see if Mr. Smith could extract any more clues out of it. I would have another look at it and see if I could get anything more out of it.

The girl was lying on the couch, flicking through the book of baby names. I wondered when she had learned to read. She'd pulled her feet up and someone had pulled a blanket over her too-thin legs. She saw me looking and motioned me over.

"Keira." She said holding up the book. "How about Keira?"

I looked at the book. _Keira. Origin: Gaelic. Meaning: Dark. Origin: Irish Gaelic word 'ciar' meaning 'dark'._

I tapped the page. "Look at the meaning."

She took the book back and looked. She mouthed the words to herself.

"Dark?" she looked again. "I like it though. Keira…"

Rani appeared behind us. "I like Keira! Reminds me of Keira Knightley. We have got to show you Pirates of the Caribbean!"

"Yeah." Chipped in Clyde. "Her character is _hot_ in that!"


	9. Family

It was getting dark and the newly christened Keira was nodding off. We'd put 'Keira' to Sarah Jane who had approved of it and the name had stuck from then on in. Rani and Clyde had to be off and Sarah Jane was thinking of supper. She wanted to make something special for Keira's first meal.

Before Clyde and Rani left, they helped as carry all the equipment up the stairs to Mr. Smith. They moaned that they wanted to stay, but they had to get back to their suppers. They left and I plugged and computers and monitors into Mr. Smith so he could look inside their files to see if there was anything that we could use in them. Sarah Jane had been all fingers and thumbs with the cables, not sure where to plug them all into, so I took over and was done in a minute.

Then Sarah Jane went to start supper and I went with Keira to find some more temporary clothes that she could wear. Sarah Jane had gone through some of hers during the day and had picked some that she didn't want any more or she thought would fit Keira, so we dragged the pile into the spare bedroom and started to sort through them.

"Here's something." I tossed her a top that looked like it wouldn't be too big. She laid it down her front to measure up the sizes and made a face when she saw how long it was. I grinned ruefully and carried on looking. "This one?" she caught and measured it, then started to take off her t-shirt.

I immediately looked away before she got it all off. Yes, we were quite similar. She, too, had no idea about earth etiquette the same as me.

"Luke?"

"Yes?" I answered, managing not to turn round as habit told me too when someone said my name.

"When are these coming off?" I turned round to see her motioning to her bandages. I felt a light sweat come up on my forehead. Hadn't she put her top on yet? Mercifully, the bandages covered her entire chest and stomach. She looked pitifully tiny. Next stop: food.

"Soon." I promised. "As soon as your cut gets better. We may need to take you to the Doctor's for stitches though." Blank look. Of course she'd never heard of a Doctors. I had forgotten how hard it was in the beginning. How many things you have to learn.

Thankfully, at that moment, she pulled the top on and went to look in the mirror in her wardrobe. She stood and looked herself as I rooted in the pile for a pair of trousers or a skirt. Something that would cover up her legs and also stay around her thin hips. Nothing, but there was a sarong-like thing she could wrap around.

After another quarter of an hour of rummaging, trying on and me politely looking away, Sarah Jane called us down for supper. Luckily, she now had a half-decent set of clothes to wear. We would just have to go shopping sometime and pick up some clothes that actually fit. Probably aged 9-10.

As soon as she got out into the hall, her head started turning this way and that, sniffing at the air. She could smell the meal that Sarah Jane had made us. She was bound to be hungry, after only eating biscuits. We needed to feed her up. To an outsider, she would look undernourished or anorexic

Usually, Sarah Jane and I sat opposite each other with no other people around our small table. Tonight, Keira sat to my right. She rested her small elbows on the table and looked at the flowers Sarah Jane had placed in a vase in the centre. Sarah Jane had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to make her feel welcome. My welcoming committee was a wonderful night time drink of lemonade with Sarah Jane and Maria. The night they named me and the night Sarah Jane legally adopted me.

As if reading my mind, Sarah Jane handed me some sheets of printed out paper.

"Mr. Smith sorted it all out!" she beamed. I looked at the adoption papers. _Keira Smith…_It sounded so strange.

"What did you put for her age?" I asked flipping through the papers. There were lots of printouts of laws.

"I made her just old enough to be in your year." Sarah Jane answered. "I didn't want her to be held back and I wanted her to be with someone she was comfortable with, like you had Maria. She'll have you, Rani and Clyde to look after her."

I nodded. It was a good idea, but looking at Keira now I wasn't sure she could pass for someone of my age. She looked like she should be a couple of years below.

"We'll say she's your younger sister. You are old for your age group and Keira's young. You've got over a ten month age gap. It works out fine." She took the paper from me and handed them over for Keira to look at them, ruffling her hair.

This seemed to remind her of something. "We're going to need to cut this hair of her's." she remarked. "It's too long for someone so young to look after. We should chop it to at least her waist. It'll get in the way otherwise."

I nodded, though it would be a shame to cut off that gorgeous mane. It really was ridiculous though.

Sarah Jane served up the fish and chips she had made for Keira's first night. I got the camera out and took a picture of all of us together, enjoying our first meal together as a family. It felt good to think that. We were a family now. Probably one of the strangest families in the country, but still a family. I realised there was one person I wanted desperately to tell all of this to.

Sarah Jane was thinking the same thing.

"What time would it be in America right now?"

After dinner, I took Keira up to the attic again. I didn't want to keep her up too late, but it felt important that I introduce her to Maria.

"Hey Luke!"

Just hearing Maria's voice made me feel nostalgic. When was the last time I had seen her? I remembered waving her off in her taxi. Her face filled the screen in front of me, her smile huge. It was always weird seeing it light there when it's dark here in England.

"I just got back from school!" she informed me with a grin. "How are your GCSE's going? Silly question." She laughed. "You'll be sailing through them." I missed her laugh and her infectious grin.

"They're good thanks, Maria." I answered. "How's everything over there?"

"Aww, it's great!" enthused Maria. "Missing you of course!" Her dad walked across the screen behind her.

"Hi Mr. Jackson!" I called to him. He waved a hand in greeting and walked off the screen.

"There's actually someone I'd like you to meet." I said to Maria. I pointed the screen at Keira who peered into it curiously, her large eyes flickering around, making sense of the image. "This is Keira. She was created, like me." I realised I hadn't mentioned any of this to Keira yet. We needed to talk and ask her if she remembered anything before the alleyway.

"Hi Keira!" Maria was saying. She was always so accepting and friendly to everyone. I don't have half her charm. "So you're Luke's new sister! How is everything?"

"Um, good thank you." Answered Keira shyly. She looked up at me as if to see if this was the right thing to say. I smiled encouragingly back at her. "We just had fish and chips. And apple juice."

I smiled. Of all the things to say.

"Anyway, I won't keep you up." Said Maria, "Unless there's anything else you want to talk about? It's just I've got this Biology paper I need to get finished."

I felt slight disappointment, but I knew she had her own life now in America and I couldn't take up all of her time. She had a whole new school and her own new friends and people to hang around with.

"Sure, shall I tell Clyde and Rani you said hi?"

"Sure. Thanks for calling, Luke, and nice to see you." She smiled at Keira. "Nice to meet you."

I stared for a moment into her darks eyes before she terminated the connection.


	10. Narcolepsy

"…and don't late home this afternoon because we're going shopping." Sarah Jane finished, sipping her cup of tea and reading the morning flicking through the morning paper. "I need to get Keira some clothes and you're growing a bit as well. You need a new school uniform."

I nodded, but half of my mind was still waking up. It didn't usually take this long, but last night was the call with Maria and I didn't get to bed until quite late. Lucky Keira. I didn't think she had even cracked an eyelid yet. She hadn't when I'd gone in to check on her. I was half worried that she was going to zone out for another two days solid, but when I'd shaken her gently she did a slight moan and I reckoned she was just tired too.

"I'm going to take her to the doctor's today." Sarah Jane added.

I almost choked on my toast, but managed to cough out, "Wha- why? If you take her the doctor might see the-", I gestured, "and they'll do all kinds of tests on her!"

Mum bit her lip. "I know. But I don't think all this sleep is natural. I've asked Mr. Smith to monitor her and we both reckon she may be narcoleptic."

"A disorder marked by excessive daytime sleepiness, uncontrollable sleep attacks, and cataplexy?" I asked, quoting from a medical dictionary I had read once.

"Cataplexy?"

"'A sudden loss of muscle tone, usually lasting up to half an hour.'"

"Ah." Sarah Jane gave her tea a 'just go along with it' look and carried on. "Anyway, it could be nothing, I just want to check it out and check if she's well. I'll pick you up from school; ask Rani and Clyde if they want to come along, though tell Clyde I will _not_ buy him another x-box 360 game."

Sarah Jane was as good as her word, (what a strange expression) and picked us up after school finished. Of course, Rani and Clyde would never turn down a shopping trip and they were coming along too.

I got in in the left hand side of the car, while Rani got in the right, and Clyde the front seat. Keira sat in the middle, clutching her seatbelt to her and cringing every time the engine roared.

"Don't like the car?" Rani asked innocently. "But it's such a nice colour!"

Keira shuddered and drew her knees up on the seat so they touched her chest.

Sarah Jane started the car and we drove off in the direction of town.

"How was school today?" Sarah Jane asked, looking in the mirror at us on the back seat. "Learn anything?" Clyde made a non-committal noise.

Keira pressed up against my shoulder as we went round a bend. We straightened up, but her head stayed there. She really didn't like cars. I looked down to smile comfortingly at her, to find her lightly snoring.

Sarah Jane's eyes found me in the mirror, sad.

"The doctor confirmed it. Said it's only slight, but that we would have to take some medication to help it."

"What's the matter?" Rani asked, alarmed. "Is she alright?" she looked down at the unconscious figure.

"It's nothing, Rani. Just a small case of narcolepsy." Sarah Jane's expression darkened considerably. "Mr. Smith reckons it was caused by whatever the people who made her did to her as she was growing. Maybe she was a test subject for sleeping disorders."

Keira started awake as Sarah Jane parked the car. She hugged her knees again as if nothing had happened.

"Where first?" Sarah Jane asked as we all scrambled out. "Clothing shop for your uniforms? We might as well get that out the way, because that's never that fun. It's relatively near as well."

Keira nodded, but she was looking all around at the shops and houses and people and cars. For a moment, I could remember my first day and how overwhelming it all was to me.

The clothing shop was quieter than and not as crowded as the pavements. I could tell Keira was more comfortable without the noises and the bustle by the way her shoulders came down and her chin came up. People browsed the racks of clothing while a man bit his nails behind the counter.

Sarah Jane started examining pairs of trousers for me, telling Rani and Clyde to go look for skirts.

Keira tugged at my sleeve. "Luke!" she whispered urgently. "That man's eating himself!" she jerked her head over towards the man at the counter. She stared at him. He must have felt her watching because he scowled and started fiddling with the till.

I took her hand. "Come on. Let's go look for shirts."

We each found a few shirts to try on and took them to the changing rooms. Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde were still browsing trousers and skirts.

"That man _was _eating himself." She whispered through the wall that was the only thing separating us. "Chewing on his thumb!" I could almost feel her shudder.

"He was biting his nails." I explained. "Some people form nervous habits, like biting nails or scratching or something like that."

Silence.

"Keira?"

Nothing.

"Keira, are you OK?" I opened the curtain to my changing room and stepped outside to listen at hers. Was she alright? I thought back to what Clyde had told me. I pushed that to the back of my mind and pulled the curtain open to slip inside and pull it shut. She sat propped up against the mirror, her mouth slightly open, taking in slow breaths, totally out of it. Luckily, she was wearing clothes. She's pulled on one of the short-sleeved blouses before collapsing.

Just to make sure she was alright, I leant down to reach her pulse. Of course, that would be the moment when Rani and Sarah Jane pull the curtain back to reveal me standing over an unconscious girl, reaching towards her neck. And the exact moment she woke up.

Sarah Jane gave me a stern look. "Back to your cubicle, Luke." She ordered, handing over some trousers and hanging some up in Keira's cubicle. Clyde grinned at me before I pulled the curtain to mine closed.

"Better luck next time, eh, mate?"

"I heard that, Clyde Langer!" Rani yelled from the next cubicle. "You pervert."

Clyde did a mock oh-I'm-scared face at the curtain and went over to chat up one of the female employees straightening ties.

After we'd paid for all our new clothes, we went to a stationary shop to buy some school supplies for Keira. I was still a little dubious about her being in our year, but if she was like me she was more than clever enough.

Once we got them, mum said she was tired and went to a café for a coffee, leaving us with some money to go find some everyday clothes for Keira. Rani took us round all the shops she liked and "five billion years later", as Clyde said, we and picked up Sarah Jane.

"Have fun?" she asked. "I hope Luke wasn't sneaking in to anyone's changing room again." She finished the last of her coffee and left money on the table.

I scowled. "She wasn't answering, I was just making sure she was OK."

Sarah Jane laughed at my expression. "You know I'm teasing." She said in her soothing voice.

When we pulled up into Bannerman road, there were two polices cars parked right outside our driveway.


	11. Intruder

"Stay in the car." Sarah Jane ordered through tight lips. I wondered if she remembered the last time police cars pulled up outside of our house; on the day they came to take me away to live with my proper 'parents'. Her knuckles were white as she clutched the steering wheel and drove past the blue and yellow cars into our driveway.

As soon as the engine was off, she jumped out to talk to the policemen that were already coming up our path. Clyde and Rani scrambled round in their seats to look out the windows. My heart was fluttering. Surely…Surely no-one was claiming Keira like they had done with me?

A tap at the window made me jump with nerves and adrenaline. But it was only mum tapping on the window, looking anxious. I rolled my window down and let go of Keira's hand. When had I even started holding it? I was definitely 'losing it'.

"The police said there's been a break-in." Sarah Jane explained. "Come on."

She filled us in quietly as we walked towards the front door.

"Gita saw someone lurking around our house and phoned the police. They arrived in about five minutes, but by that time they had picked the lock of our front door and gone in. The police tried to get into our house to arrest the robber, but Mr. Smith had sealed all the exits by that point."

Clyde looked confused. "Why'd Mr. Smith lock all the doors and stuff? How are _we_ going to get in?"

In answer, Sarah Jane flicked open the top to her watch and pressed a button. I heard a faint click within the thick door and when Sarah Jane inserted her key, the door swung open just as it normally did.

"Stay quiet." Ordered mum. "Unless they have some sort of teleportation device, they shouldn't have been able to get out. I want to sneak up on _them_ instead of the other way around."

She motioned us into the kitchen.

"You think its alien?" asked Rani uncertainly. "I could just be a robber. You've got a big house here that a burglar might find interesting."

Sarah Jane shook her head. "No. I can feel it's alien. I've got a hunch. Now stay here; I don't want any of you getting hurt. We have no idea what we're dealing with. _No_ Luke!" she warned as I started to open my mouth to argue. She knew me too well. But I couldn't believe she was going to look around without any of us to look after her.

She took out her sonic lipstick and slipped out of the kitchen. Sarah Jane could be very quiet when she wanted to be.

I busied myself by making everyone tea. Once I'd got Keira latched on to a packet of biscuits, Clyde, Rani and I went to talk in a corner. We were all listening out for noises in the house, but so far we hadn't heard anything.

"D'you think they've come for her?" Clyde asked, jerking his head towards Keira. "They might have lost her and, like, want her back or something."

If they wanted her back, they'd have to go through me first. I was certain whoever had made her had given her a fatal wound and left her in an alley to die. No way _they_ were getting her back. I looked over at her. Face-down asleep on a plate of digestives. I turned back to Clyde and Rani, who were exchanging a look.

We all jumped as we heard Mr. Smith powering up noisily upstairs.

"Do you think that means its safe to go up?" Rani asked in a hushed whisper. "Sarah Jane wouldn't call him up if she knew someone or something was in the house, listening, would she?"

We left Keira downstairs and headed up. We found mum literally fuming with anger.

"They've taken all the computers!" she all but yelled at us. "They just walked in here and _took _them _all!_" she wrung her hands the way she does when she's upset and sat down, hard, on the couch. "Mr. Smith says he detected an alien presence in here around the time the policemen say the break in occurred." She added miserably, "But it was gone so quickly that he couldn't put a containment field around it." Rani went over and hugged her, while I went to talk to Mr. Smith.

"Did you finish analyzing the computers we left you, Mr. Smith?"

"Percentage completed: 91%, Luke." Replied Mr. Smith in his cool voice. "I don't believe that the 9% incomplete were of much importance."

"Thank you, Mr. Smith. Did you have time to work out who came here and took everything?"

"Species confirmed as no human, but other than that I am of little assistance."

I nodded and turned back to mum, who was composing herself. Keira had entered the room without my noticing and was looking out of the skylight in the roof. The last rays of sunlight were falling on her hair. She looked like she was trying to soak them all up.

"Could you give us a summary of all that was on the computers?" Sarah Jane asked Mr. Smith. I snapped my attention away from Keira to the computer in the wall.

"That would take many hours, Sarah Jane." Mr. Smith informed her. "Shall I filter out the bits I think are of some importance to you?"

Sarah Jane considered. "Yes. If you please."

"A group of aliens that do not refer to themselves by name in the documents wanted make a product that could send creatures with humans genetic code into an irreversible sleep. The archetype that you have called 'Keira' was their first experiment into the drug they sought to make. There is a written documentary of the process, in which they inserted a drip with their first solution into the subject's arm and monitored progress. A summary of the progress is that she reacted as they hoped to the treatment, but they had to continually give her more of the solution to keep her asleep. She had never been awake before she came to this house."

Something seemed to click into place. "When we first scanned her, to see if she was alright Mr. Smith picked up the needle in her arm. It must have been the one they used to keep her supplied with the drug and when they disposed of her, it must have snapped off and become imbedded in her arm!"

"Correct, Luke." Confirmed Mr. Smith. "I have analyzed the chemical nature of the solution, which is recorded in the documents and come to the conclusion that a drop the drug could send her into a sleep for up to a week. I believe there is still some drug left over in the needle that is causing her brief minutes of unconsciousness."

"We have to get it out!" I said to Sarah Jane. "If we get it out, then she will be cured of the narcolepsy!"

"It's not as simple as that, though." Sighed Sarah Jane. "To get it out, we would have to take her to a doctor and he would want to know what it was doing in there. We can't take her to a normal Doctor, that's for sure." She turned to Mr. Smith. "We'll have to think about this. Maybe we'll have to contact Torchwood, see if they have a Doctor these days."

**A/N- Sorry it's so terrible. I've had writer's block for, like, two weeks and I wanted to get something up for you all to read. I'll try and make the next chapter a little more entertaining; I know this one was quite boring.**

**Thanks to all my **_**gorgeous**_** reviewers! Have a cookie, (chocolate chip).**

**:D**


	12. I Can't Sleep

I woke up that night by a pressure at the end of my bed, close to my feet and a voice whispering my name. I didn't need to say a word, but she somehow knew I was awake.

"I couldn't sleep."

If I hadn't been almost fully asleep, I would have laughed. _Couldn't sleep!_ She did nothing _but_ sleep. Of course, drifting in and out of consciousness I just mumbled something not even _I _remember and patted the duvet by me. I felt her breathing on my arm as she lay down next to me and curled up into a ball.

"Do you get pictures in your head when you sleep?"

I shook my head; no. Apart from the night she woke up and never after and before that had I had dreams. Sometimes I wished I could see what other people see when they sleep. I don't care much for nightmares though.

"They're terrible." I felt her shudder next to me.

When I found her hand it was soft but cold. "Tell me about them."

She traced a tendon along my arm. "They're so dark." In the scant light I saw her lay her head on my pillow. Her dark hair tickled my cheek. "So, so dark."

That was all I could get her to say about the dreams that had interrupted her sleep. When she moved closer, I felt her shiver from the cold.

"Come on then." I mumbled and pulled up the covers so she could get under them. I couldn't let her get cold out there. Her knees pressed against my hips, making me jump slightly form the cold and the jolt they sent through my body. I moved over to give her some room and almost tumbled out of the bed. It really was too small for two people, even if one was the size of a ten year old.

One arm wrapped around her waist to stop her falling out of the bed, I got myself comfy. It didn't seem close enough for her, so she rested her head on my chest. With me stroking her hair for comfort, somehow we managed to drift off.

"Luke! Keira!" the sound of Sarah Jane's voice woke me up that morning from an incredibly deep slumber. I looked down at Keira, who was breathing shallowly in sleep, her head still on my chest. Edging out, I grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom.

Sarah Jane looked up from her morning paper as I entered the room after getting changed.

"Seen Keira?" she asked, taking a sip off coffee.

"Errr, yeah, she's still sleeping." I mumbled. Sarah Jane nodded and turned back to her paper.

"I'm thinking about aiming to get her into school by next week, what d'you think?" she asked. "We can't keep her here forever. I've got things to do and people to see. She should be largely better by then anyway."

"Good idea."

Sarah Jane put down her paper. "I rang around and I found a Doctor to take the needle out of her arm. Captain Jack recommends a private organisation he found out about a few years ago that are used to all sorts of strange cases and their policy is no questions asked." She beamed and finished off the rest of her coffee. "I'm taking her there tomorrow while you're at school. We should be back when you get home."

"So it'll be out soon?" I asked happily. I kept on thinking she was going to pass out on the stairs. That could be very dangerous. It would be best just to get the needle out so she could start up a normal life. As normal as you could get if you fight aliens. I was worried how we were going to introduce this to her. She didn't wake up in the middle of a factory with loads of aliens chasing after her, so she didn't really have the introduction I did.

Rani rang the doorbell a few minutes later and we went off to school, picking Clyde up on the way. I thought how it would be weird walking to school when Keira joined us. It would look like we were taking her to Primary school.

School was uneventful. We've learn all we have to learn and now it's just revision for GCSE's. I prefer learning new things than going over old stuff I'll never forget.

When we got back, mum was up in the attic typing an article up and Keira was in the living-room staring wide-eyed at the television. She wore some clothes we had got for her yesterday; a long-sleeved white t-shirt and a small pair of faded blue jeans. She was watching the music channel, gaping at some female singer who was flinging herself about dancing whilst, of course, singing at the same time.

"How do they do it?" she asked in awe. She attempted to recreate one of the moves the singer was doing, but I could tell her back was paining her. Her cut was just one large scab now, though we kept bandages on it just in case. Last night while I was drifting off I could feel the outline of it through her nightshirt.

"I'll have to teach you when you're better." Announced Rani. "Every girl should be able to dance."

"You can't dance." scoffed Clyde. "And when you do it looks like this." He did a funny jiggy thing with his arms and hips which made Rani flush and scowl.

"I can dance!" she told him heatedly, but, as I anticipated, she couldn't stay angry at him and started to smile.

Clyde grinned back at her. "Nah, Lukey's the one that is totally terrible at groovin'." I wasn't going to argue about that. Anything to do with physical activity and skill and I was rubbish at it. Me dancing would just be terrible. Not that I've ever tried.

We all at down on the sofa she was on and watched the afternoon shows. It was so rarely that we did something so normal and it was quite nice just to chill out and relax without the threat of an alien invasion.

As it started to get dark, Sarah Jane came down and shooed Clyde and Rani out.

"You need to revise for your GCSE's you two!" she told them. "Especially you, Clyde. Out." She saw them out and closed the door after them. I couldn't get up because a minute before Keira had slumped on my shoulder and I didn't want to wake her. Not that I probably could with all that sleeping drug trapped in a needle in her arm.

"Tea-time kids." Sarah Jane announced round the doorframe as she passed." And then straight off to bed. You've been having too many late nights; you need to go to bed early to make up."

"But I want to talk to Maria!" I called back as she went into the kitchen. "I only got to talk for a few minutes last time!" and I wanted to see her again, of course. For some reason Maria was the person I thought about the most. Though lately Keira was beginning to take over. I worried about her all the time.

"You better make it fast this time, too!" Sarah Jane called back. "I want Keira early to bed, even if she does sleep half the day."

I felt Keira stir beside me. She levered her head off my shoulder and ran a hand through her hair. "How long was I asleep?" she asked groggily.

"Not long." Assured her. "Come on; supper."


	13. Operation

**A/N- Please tell me what you think of how I portrayed Sarah Jane's character. I think I'm rubbish and doing anyone but Luke, really, so any critique or suggestions would be welcome. **

**I wanted to do it from her point of view because I wanted to write what happened when they went to the Private Healthcare place instead of just telling Luke what happened. Anyway, tell me what you think!**

**Sarah Jane's POV**

We'd set out early in the morning so we would be out all day. It was strange to sit in a car with the small, quiet girl who I hardly knew. She was so very different from Luke. With him I had felt an instant connection, and though I was very fond of Keira, it didn't really feel the same. I felt rather bad; you weren't supposed to love one child more than another. I hoped, though, that I would get to know her and love her as a daughter.

We hadn't seen Luke as he went before he got up. I had to carry Keira out to the car in her pyjamas as she refused to wake up. Or maybe couldn't. I was glad she was still asleep, lain out across the back seat, clumsily strapped in because it meant that I wouldn't have to make awkward conversation with her.

Just when I was thinking we ought to get there soon I saw the sign and turned off at the turning. The organisation was housed basically in the middle of nowhere in a grand house with a wide lawn and tasteful ornaments. A big sign by the driveway said 'Outer Cambridge Private Healthcare Facility.'

I didn't want to wake the small figure lying across the backseat; she looked so cosy and peaceful, but after I had parked the car in the spacious car-park and waited for a few minutes to see if she would surface I knew I was going to have to.

"Keira." I said as gently as I could. I leant over my seat and shook her shoulder slightly. "We're here, get up." she groaned and flapped her small hands at me. They were just like a young child's. Was I wrong to put her in Luke's year? Mr Smith had put her age to be about fourteen, though I could hardly believe that possible. Only one year younger than Luke and Clyde and Rani. He said she had been malnourished and hadn't grown up properly. I didn't know if I would share that with Luke; he'd probably get angry.

Once Keira was on her feet, I locked up and we made our way to the front door. It was large and wooden and looked like it could withstand anything. There was a buzzer, which Keira insisted on pressing and a few second wait before the door was opened by a woman in a sterile blue uniform and we were ushered inside.

"Did you make an appointment, Ms…" said the woman who's nametag dubbed her 'Shelly Vaughn'; Receptionist.

"Ms. Smith. Yes, I called up yesterday, booked for a 'Keira Smith.'" I put my arm around Keira to indicate who it was for. It felt natural; I was always hugging Luke this way, but also very strange putting my arm around those unfamiliar shoulders.

Shelly Vaughn led us to a waiting room, painted in uplifting colours of sky-blue and sea-green. Lots of greens in places like this are slightly sick-looking, but this one was very refreshing.

The secretary left with a 'Please wait here Ms. Smith', so me and Keira sat down on the comfy chairs situated by the window. Dry fronds in pots were placed on a table, along with some magazines advertising health products. I looked through them, but I couldn't find _Home and Garden_, so I sat back and watch my daughter take in the surroundings. That was one thing I definitely loved about having people who had never seen anything before. I adored telling Luke the functions of things, how they worked, and their name. Keira didn't ask half as many questions, but I was able to tell when she was curious and when she was not.

We only waited five minutes before were shown into a room that looked like a Doctor's office. There was a large poster all the human bones on one wall and the symbol (two snakes wrapped around a stick) carved into the door. The doctor stood there smiling at us from behind his chair.

"Hello, Ms. Smith!" he beamed and ushered us into two seats in front of the desk. "Please, please, sit!" he sat down on his own chair and sifted through a stack of papers on his desk. He pulled one out and studied it for a second.

"Doctor Whittle." He introduced himself as. "So you called in yesterday, with the hope that we could do something for your daughter." It wasn't really a question, just a clarification, so I stayed quiet. "She's got…a needle? In her arm, you say? Well, I'll talk you through the procedure and if you have any questions you can ask them before we operate."

I nodded and saw Keira nod next to me. We hadn't really talked about it, but she knew what would happen and why it needed to. I knew she was frustrated by her constant loss of consciousness.

"So. Any questions?" Doctor Whittle asked us.

There was a short silence before Keira asked softly, "Will it hurt?"

"Not at all." The Doctor assured her. "We've decided for this sort of procedure, which could potentially get messy that we'll put you under. There'll only be an injection."

Keira shuddered. I knew from the last time she had entered a Doctor's office that somewhere along the way, Keira had developed a slight phobia of needles. The poor Doctor had been trying to give her a dose of medicine to combat her narcolepsy and she had been shaking and crying all the way through it. It was quite disturbing.

"If there are no other questions we can prep her for surgery, then." Doctor Whittle said after a few moments of silence. "The operation will only take about half an hour. We'll need to keep her in for an additional hour for observation, but then you're free to go." He turned to me. "Would you like to waiting in the waiting room or watch the operation, Ms. Smith? She might need someone to hold her hand and make her feel safe."

"Of course, yes." I answered. "Whenever I watched those TV drama's of people in surgery I'm always struck by how they're surrounded by surgeons and people like that, but never by their loved ones. I didn't want to let Keira down like that.

Half an hour later, I was beginning to regret my consent. I had changed into a surgical gown complete with mask and now I was sitting next to Keira, looking at all the lethal-looking tools laid out on a far counter. She hadn't even been put under yet, but I felt sick.

"This is a new product." Doctor Whittle informed me, looking very sinister in his scrubs and mask. He tapped the syringe he was holding. "Just on the market and hard to get." He smiled proudly before sticking the needle in Keira. This didn't pose a problem as they had strapped her down so she couldn't wriggle an inch on the operating table.

As she drifted off, she was crying though.

Doctor Whittle talked me through the operation as he did it. I watched as he cut the delicately pale skin of Keira's forearm. He had an x-ray next to him that they had done a little while earlier so he could easily tell where the needle was. I can't say it was nice watching him rummage around inside her arm, cutting and peeling back skin before snipping and poking and finally pulling out a long, thin piece of metal about five centimetres long. I flinched as it clattered onto a metal tray.

Doctor Whittle sewed up the long cut with swift, efficient stitches. He wrapped it in gauze and finished it off with a bandage clip.

"All done." He said with a smile. "She should wake up soon and within an hour you can be on your way."

"Thank you, Doctor." I smiled back. It really was a weight off my mind. I was glad we had that sorted out. She could finally just be a normal girl and go to school. Plus, I needed time to work and this week was just one big long babysitting. "How much do you charge? I understand you're not on the NHS."

The Doctor smiled and waved it off. "Don't worry about it." he said in a friendly manner. "I understand you're a friend of Captain Jack's though. If you see him, tell him 'Peter' said 'hi'." He winked. "We had quite a thing going in the seventies."


	14. DormiSalv

**A/N- I'm sorry it's so short- I've been trying to write it forever, but I've got a slight but not too serious case of writer's block. To make it up to you, I'll try and upload another Chapter really soon and make it good. :D**

**Merry Christmas!**

As Rani, Clyde and I turned the corner in my drive I breathed out a sigh of relief. Sarah Jane's green car was parked reassuringly in the driveway and the lights on the ground floor were on. As it was the last day of school, all of our parents had given consent for us to have a sleepover and Sarah Jane had given her consent for it to be held at our house. What with everything that had been happening, we'd forgotten that the school holidays were here. We were going to send Keira to school with us on Monday, but remembered that we didn't go back until early January.

When we walked into the kitchen, I could immediately feel the atmosphere was different from what it had been for the last week. The tension had been stripped away and replaced by a laid-back comfortable feel. I didn't have to ask to know that the operation went well and was a success; the change in Keira was apparent. Although her forearm was wrapped up in thick bandage, she was smiling at us and practically glowing.

Sarah Jane was mixing something up in a bowl. I raised my eyebrows at her. Was she actually _baking?_ She cooked dinner and sometimes heated some stuff up, but I'd never seen her actually _make_ something. She was becoming all maternal.

"Hello, Luke!" mum greeted me. "I'm making a cake to celebrate Keira's operation being a success. The Doctor said she did very well and she's healing up already. Better yet, she hasn't slept since."

"Awesome!" said Clyde. "So she'll be all better now?"

"Should be." Confirmed Sarah Jane. "I've got the clinic's number in case anything goes wrong, but it was very minor surgery and there shouldn't be any complications. And _no_, you cannot have any!" she said when she saw him eye up the cake mix. "This is going to be the best cake ever; I'll not have you poking your fingers in it. Go next door, I'll call you when suppers ready."

Keira accompanied us into the living room, where we put the TV on, but didn't really watch it.

"Look at Sarah Jane becoming all housewife-y." giggled Rani. "She and mum will get together soon and swap recipes!" Clyde chuckled at that, making Rani grin in delight that she'd made him laugh.

"She's already made some gingerbread." Keira chipped in. She was sitting next to me on the sofa, not tucked up into a ball like she usually was, but sitting with her legs up and under her. "She let me cut it into shapes."

I was glad Sarah Jane and Keira seemed to be getting fond of each other. While Keira and I had a natural bond, I got the feeling that mum needed to get used to her.

"Gingerbread, seriously?" asked Clyde incredulously. "She must be in a good mood. I didn't know she even had a recipe book. And if she had, it would've been an alien one."

We talked until Sarah Jane called us for supper.

"Have a good day at school?" she asked once we were all seated and eating.

Clyde grunted a non-committal noise through a mouthful of pizza, whilst Rani and I nodded.

"It was the last day, so we didn't really do anything though." Explained Rani. "Would've thought you'd've enjoyed doing nothing, Clyde."

"Don't see why we can't just stay at home if we're not going to do anything." He grumbled back. "Why do we even go in?"

After dinner and a cake that must have had more baking powder in it than flour, we got our sleeping bags and spread them out in the living room. We turned the TV on again and flicked through a few channels before setting it on a new channel and ignoring it.

We made small talk until Keira pointed at the screen.

"That's the drug they used for my operation."

A news presenter on the screen was saying was reporting the existence of a new drug that wasn't yet available everywhere in the country.

"…research suggests that it is over two hundred times safer than your everyday anaesthetic. While an average of five in one million people don't wake up from an anaesthetic, only one in one hundred million are at risk from 'DormiSalv', the newest sleep-inducer on the market. While it is not yet on the NHS, it is reported that they have ordered over two million doses of it from abroad. And next, the story of a-"

Keira smiled. "It felt just like going to sleep."


	15. Putting Two and Two Together

**A/N- Not so sure about this chapter, but I think things are hotting up! I won't be able to update for a little while because I'm going away and I'm not sure if I'll have internet, so don't forget to review and Happy New Year! :D**

"It felt just like going to sleep."

In rare moments of enlightenment, words and noises do not replay like they show in movies and TV programs. There's not even any dramatic music. You do, however, sit there with your mouth hanging open thinking, _ohhh, duh!_

Rani and Clyde turned their attention back to the News, (the story of young boy who had disappeared outside Cambridge to be united with his parents nine years later) as Keira watched me struggle to compose myself and firmly shut my jaw. She looked at me speculatively, as if steeling herself.

Casting a look at Clyde and Rani, she scooted closer to me on the sofa. Her t-shirt today was a gentle dove-grey with long sleeves. She rolled the right sleeve up to above her elbow and held it up for me to see. On the underside of her elbow, by some veins that seemed to stick out, a word was burned into her skin. DORMISALV.

How could we have missed it? It looked like it had healed a while ago, leaving only the letters in dark red. The skin around it looked stretched, like it had swollen and then gone back down.

I stood up, pulling Keira up with me. We needed to work this out.

"We're just going to, um, get something from the attic." I explained to Clyde and Rani, before heading off upstairs with her behind me.

"Explain it all." I ordered once we were seated on the couch in the attic. I didn't get it. If she knew, why hadn't she said anything?

"I saw that I had this thing," she gestured to her arm, "when I first woke up. It didn't hurt, so I forgot about it until I went to the private healthcare place. They took the injection that would put me to sleep from a box with the exact phrase 'DormiSalv' on it." she rubbed the arm they had operated on. "I was scared, I though they meant to put me to sleep for a long time again, just like the first time, but maybe forever."

I put an arm round her.

"Why didn't you mention it?" I asked. "We need to know everything about this company. I need to tell Sarah Jane and we need to work out who's behind this all." I jumped to my feet. "Mr. Smith, I need you!"

Mr. Smith emerged loudly and with the usual hissing of air and suchlike.

"Mr. Smith, what can you tell me about a product called 'DormiSalv'? Where are their factories? Has anything funny happened near them?" for all we knew there could be many children like Keira that were made to be tested on. The thought almost made me smile. Our house would look like a Children's Care Centre. Would we take them in? We couldn't take them all in.

"The company that made DormiSalv was only founded one and a half years ago. They wanted to produce a product that would send people into a sleep, like an anaesthetic, but much safe. The name originates from two words, the French for sleep, 'Dormir' and the Italian for safe, 'salvo'. Literally, the name means 'sleep safe'. The company has factories in four countries around the world, but the biggest one is here, in England. I haven't detected any alien readings or abnormalities from any of them."

"Thank you." I settled back to the couch to think. Keira came with me, curling up beside me, sucking a joint on one of her fingers.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." She said suddenly. She inspected her small fingernails, and then flicked her eyes back up to me. "I didn't want to put you under any more stress. I had a back that needed to be bandaged and a sleeping disorder that needed to be cared for and I didn't want you to be burdened with so much that was wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you." I told her. "It was all temporary. Now you're all fixed up you can grow up as a teenager and live normally with me and Sarah Jane. When the holidays are over and school starts, you'll be going there too, with Clyde, Rani and me."

She nodded and inched her way under my arm, trying to hide the wince that scraping her back against the couch gave her, but not really succeeding.

"Luke, am I a runt?"

I shifted myself to look at her. She didn't half come out with the weirdest things.

"I was watching 'Charlotte's Web' yesterday and there's this pig, see, who's a runt because he's so tiny compared to his brothers and sisters and I was just wondering if I'm the same. Sarah Jane says that she putting me in your year at school, but if everyone is your size, how am I going to fit in with them? They'll all be a head taller."

I hadn't considered that Keira knew she was small.

"You didn't get the right nutrients when you were growing." I explained. "You became malnourished, which is why you're all skinny." I couldn't think about this without feeling a surge of anger. Stupid, irresponsible aliens, or whoever's. Couldn't they care for one girl? "Now you're eating more, you should get a little bigger, but I'm not sure about the high issue. And you're not a runt."

She nodded, but I could be sure if she was listening or not. She was playing with strands of my hair. It's too long and I really need to get it cut, though I think I've got a rather cool fringe-thing coming along. Keira's long fingers weaved it into plaits and curls and twists. I felt nice, just sitting there with her and not worrying about aliens or whatever. The skylight was dark; night was already here. I hadn't noticed it settling down.

I was in such a moment of peace, that of course it would be that moment that Clyde, Rani and Sarah Jane would come crashing through the door with their noise, going, "Oh Luke, you've been gone for ages!", "I thought you were only going upstairs to get something", "what were you doing up here?"

"Why's Mr. Smith on?" asked Sarah Jane suspiciously. "What have you been up to up here?"

I then explain my theory to her; that 'DormiSalv' was the same substance that was in Keira's arm and that aliens were probably behind all of it, just like the Bane. It could even be the Bane this time. But then again, it could also be another alien life form that we've never encountered before that has bought a software package for one human child.

"Of course! Honestly, am I going to have to check out every new product companies make from now on? This is ridiculous! I did think, though; in the beginning remember that she could have been made to test out sleeping drugs. I just didn't put two and two together and know that something was afoot."

She shifted her weight form one hip to the other, thinking.

"Mr. Smith, could I have the address for the English factory? I think we ought to go check it out, don't you?"


	16. Factory Lab Four

The next morning, we all crowded into Sarah Jane's small car and set off for the English DormiSalv factory. According to Mr. Smith it was somewhere on the outskirts of Eastbourne, nearly two hours drive away. That morning, we had had our first sort-of argument with Keira who said she would _not_ be left behind. Sarah Jane had said they had tried to kill her once and it was like taking someone to their death. Keira said to stop being melodramatic (where did she even hear that word?) and to let her go with us.

So now she was sitting in the middle of the backseat between Clyde and Rani, grinning in a way that could only be described as _smugly_. She had a picnic hamper on her lap which she had helped Sarah Jane fill with food. We decided to get off early so once we'd finished checking out the factory we could have a nice day out to celebrate the Christmas holidays.

"Off we go!" announced Sarah Jane and pulled our car out onto the street. Clyde let out a "whoop-whoop" that made Keira cover her ears and Rani roll her eyes.

"Do you think this factory's alien?" she asked Sarah Jane as we trundled along. "It could be just humans experimenting on children this time. We haven't really had any evidence that its aliens doing this."

Sarah Jane thought a minute. "No, but how would you explain the clothes she was found in? Exactly the same to what the Bane used with Luke. And those computers didn't really look like anything from earth. They had a funny code on them that only Luke could read and _somebody_ took them without being trapped by Mr. Smith's shield. I think everything points to that they are alien."

Rani nodded. Having everything summed up like that made me a little more sure, too, that this was extraterrestrial in origin.

We traded small talk for the two-hour-long drive, commenting on scenery and stuff like that. The drive was an experience for Keira who had always seemed to be asleep on most of our car journeys. Now, she looked out of the window, leaning over Rani, at the trees and the cows and the small villages.

When the roadside signs said it was four miles to Eastbourne, Sarah Jane told me to get the map out and give directions. I've always loved maps, their colour, their lines and symbols.

"Left at the next junction, mum." I instructed. "Then straight on for a mile or so. Why is the factory in the country anyway? We're still miles from Eastbourne. There it is!"

We all could see the large grey building now, soaring up above the trees.

"What's our strategy, then?" asked Clyde. "We gonna be nice and get invited in or are we gonna go in round the back?"

Sarah Jane considered for a moment as she parked some way off from the building behind a hedge. We all got out.

"If we go in as visitors, Keira can't come with us." She decided. "They'll recognise her and they'll know we're on to them. Let's split up. Rani, come with me. We'll go and talk to the bosses, while Luke, Clyde and Keira can go and look around. Here." She opened her bag and tossed her sonic lipstick to me. "You'll need it more."

I nodded. Most probably.

Sarah Jane and Rani walked up to a big door at the front of the factory, while Clyde, Keira and I jogged around the back behind some bushes. I couldn't see any security cameras, but that didn't mean that there weren't some concealed somewhere.

The factory was quite large, larger than it looked from the front and it took a while to get around it and locate a door. So far we hadn't seen anybody around the site. I was hoping we would stay as lucky. The door we did find was tucked away in an alcove and only took a second of sonic-ing to unlock. Keira held out a hand for the lipstick.

"Let me see?"

"Later." Said Clyde as he ushered us both in. He snatched the sonic lipstick and hurriedly locked the door behind us. I could hear now the approaching feet. "Someone was out there." He explained. "Come on."

We set off down a long, metal corridor. The air had a sterile smell to it; like a hospital. I could see Keira wrinkling her nose. The first door we came to seemed to be some kind of cupboard. It held generic cleaning equipment; nothing suspicious in there.

We walked up another corridor, checking round the corner first to see if anyone was there. All clear. The next door had a sign screwed onto it; 'Meeting Room." I peered into the window on the door and immediately pulled back. It seemed the reason we had seen nobody yet on our walk around was that they were all crammed into this room.

They looked human, but so had the Bane when we had first saw them. They had packed themselves around a table covered in sheaves of notes and pieces of paper. They looked like scientists; they wore long white lab coats and some hadn't even taken off their latex gloves and face-masks.

"C'mon." whispered Clyde. "Maybe they left their labs unattended if they're all here! Let's go see if we can find anything."

We crept away from the door and further along the corridor. We went past another cupboard, (what do they need all these cupboards for anyway?) and down another corridor, before we found a door which read 'LAB 4'. It looks deserted and all the lights were off, so we crept inside. Once we shut the door, my head flashed with images of some security alarm going off somewhere, but nothing was flashing inside the room that I could see, so I decided to look around. Clyde and Keira followed me in.

Clyde found a computer and waved me over. "Hey, man, let's see what's on this thing. He shook the mouse around a bit and the computer beeped, 'Please enter Password'. Clyde groaned. "We're never going to get into this. The password could be anything." We entered a few obvious things, like 'DormiSalv', 'dormisalv', 'dormi-salv' and 'ds', but nothing worked.

"Lets look elsewhere." I suggested. "We're not getting anywhere." I walked over to a desk where piles of paper lay everywhere.

"Sure." Answered Clyde while he homed in on another desk and started shifting through papers.

I looked at my desk. Something was niggling at the back of my head, but I was engrossed with reading the notes. Some were endless lists of chemical tests, their molecular structure so complex it made head hurt to think of them. And that's not something that happens everyday. There were others about nucleic acids and some notes about animal testing. And them some about…_human _testing.

Clyde got up from his desk and started roaming about, looking behind doors and under tables.

"Clyde, come and lo-"

Clyde opened the door we came from and looked out either way. Then he came back in and swore.

"Is someone coming?" I asked him, trying to get the notes back into order if we needed to make a run for it. I'd stuffed the notes on human testing into my jeans. We could hide in a cupboard if we needed to. There were plenty of them containing bottles of chemicals and lab coats.

"No." said Clyde. "You noticed someone's missing?"


	17. Search for the Gone

**A/N: Again, I express profound apologies for being such a crap updater. I couldn't really think what I wanted to put down in this chapter, but it is slightly short and I will try and update quickly with the next one to show how terribly sorry I am for letting you down. **

We both began to move at once, looking behind doors unopened and under the many desks.

"How long has she been gone for?" I asked frantically, opening the main door again and looking both ways. "When did we lose her?" I started to move up the corridor. Clyde followed me out.

"I don't know, man." He answered, jogging along beside me. "I'm sure she came in with us. She was with us when we found the meeting room. She walked up the corridor with us."

How couldn't I remember? I remember _everything._ I was too preoccupied with looking around the factory and finding things out than I was looking after my _sister._ I felt an urge to hit my head around with my fists, but overcame it. Instead I called myself ten kinds of stupid in my head, then tried to sort everything out.

Clyde poked his head round yet another corner of the series of winding corridors that made up part of the factory, or at least a good proportion of the factory. This accomplished two things. One, to see if anyone hostile or potentially dangerous was around the corner and two, to see if Keira was around there.

Clyde withdrew his head and shook it; no enemy, no Keira.

"She wouldn't have just wondered off." I reasoned when I calmed down a little bit. "Which means that a) she got lost or b) she was taken by somebody. I didn't see anybody anywhere and an alarm hasn't gone off. It may be safe to say that she just wondered off and didn't know where she was."

My reasoning was broken off by the loud, piercing clang of an alarm bell. Clyde and I instinctively flattened ourselves against the wall and it echoed up the long corridor.

"We must be close to the meeting room." Clyde pointed out. "Which means at any minute about thirty maybe hostile scientists are going to come surging down here to find us. I say we run."

Clyde and I sprinted down the corridor in roughly the same direction we had come. We needed to get back to Lab 4. If Keira had got lost (a possibility that wasn't very probable) then the best place for us to go was back there in the hope that nobody would be heading there as well.

As we turned around the first corner into another corridor I could hear voices coming from where we came from. The scientists must be out of the meeting room by now. Both Clyde and I sped up. We needed to find a hiding place before the scientists arrived and found us. If Keira was captured, we wouldn't be any use to her captured as well.

Lab 4 was deserted as we stumbled into and lurched around trying to find the best cupboard to hide in.

"Maybe Sarah Jane did something to set the alarm off." Suggesting Clyde as we hid ourselves in some lab coats in the supplies cupboard. "She might have finished the interview then gone sneaking around as well and got caught."

I nodded, then realised he couldn't see me under the lab coats. "Yeah. But that doesn't explain why Keira's missing."

Clyde grunted in assent. "They could have _all_ been captured-hey! Is that your hand or what?"

"Sorry, I'll just-"

"OW!"

"Sorry!"

"That was my effing-"

"Shhhh!"

Voices could be heard in the lab. Both Clyde and I sat stock still under the coats, to avoid detection, but also to hear what the scientists said. We could hear them moving about. I winced when I remembered the state we'd left the lab in, papers flung about everywhere on the desks. They'd know that someone had been in here.

"Look at this mess!" said someone close to our closet. "Look at these notes; they are _all_ out of order. I don't know how anyone expects us to work when people are barging in all the time and messing everything up!"

I listened with interest. Had someone else come who wasn't supposed to be here and looked around?

"The boss said they caught someone this time." Said another voice, one further away. "A lady Journalist thinking she could go looking around everywhere."

I felt Clyde stiffen beside me. It wasn't Keira they had, it was Sarah Jane. I wondered where Rani was. Had they gotten her too? Then, I wondered, where was Keira?

"We shouldn't have gotten ourselves into this." Whispered Clyde. "We should have just let Sarah Jane and Rani go in and not have poked around. Even if they do go away soon, they'll probably lock the door after them. We'll be trapped inside."

I gave him a withering look I don't think he saw under the coats. "We've got the lipstick." I reminded him. "We'll be fine. I'm just worried about mum."

"Hmm." Said Clyde.

"There's a whole section of my notes gone!" cried a lady scientist from the other side of the lab. "They go straight from animal testing to affects on sperm count!"

Clyde stifled a giggle beside me.

"Grow up." I whispered.

"I'm going to complain!" stated the first scientist who spoke. "The contract never stated that we would get searched and robbed on a weekly basis! How are we supposed to conduct experiments in this facility? Only the other week one of the employers came down and messed up three days worth of tests by eating waldorf salad all over them!"

This was greeted by many agreements and soon a whole group of them left, probably to go and complain to their superiors. I could hear the others trying to regain order in the lab. I felt quite guilty for messing up their notes. I would have put them back.

Eventually, they all left, locking the door behind them like Clyde had predicted. Of course, it only took one buzz of the screwdriver to open and another to close. It was like we had never been there.

Clyde and I jogged down a corridor, not really knowing where we were going. So far, all we had seen were the long, white corridors, with no indication of how to get out of them. An employee had said how one of their employers had come 'down' to their lab, indicating that maybe their offices were on higher levels. That was probably where they held Sarah Jane right now.

"We have to get _up._" I told Clyde. "But how are we going to get there?"


End file.
